A. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a common use pedal device for use in automotive vehicles, and more specifically, to a common use pedal device that can be applied to both a manually controlled vehicle and an electronically controlled vehicle in common.
B. Description of the Related Art
Automotive vehicles are usually provided with a plurality of pedal devices, e.g., an accelerator pedal for accelerating the vehicles, a brake pedal for reducing the speed of the vehicle and a clutch pedal for disconnecting power delivery.
Such pedal devices may be classified into a manually controlled pedal device adapted for use in carburetor-equipped vehicles and an electronically controlled pedal device for use in vehicles incorporating an Electronic Control Unit (also referred to as “ECU”).
The manually controlled pedal device is operatively connected to a throttle valve by way of a cable and, when pressed down by an operator, can be rotated about a pivot axis to pull the cable. This controls the degree of opening of the throttle valve.
The electronically controlled pedal device is electrically associated with the electronic control unit and can be rotated at an angle as it is pressed down by the operator. The angle of rotation is detected by a detection sensor and notified to the electronic control unit that controls an electronically controlled engine, based on the result of detection.
Most of automotive vehicles recently on sale are equipped with the electronic control unit for electronically controlling various vehicle operations, which rapidly increases the demand for the electronically controlled pedal device.
Despite such situation, the manually controlled vehicles continue to be in use together with the electronically controlled vehicles. This makes it inevitable to separately produce the manually controlled pedal device and the electronically controlled pedal device. Producing the two kinds of pedal devices separately is quite costly and time-consuming, consequently increasing the overall throughput and production costs.